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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cruentus" data-source="post: 8741584" data-attributes="member: 7034645">In my games, I assume that players are literate in their own language, whatever cultural language that might be.  But that's it.  If you "know" 4 languages, you can read and write your own, but the other three you can speak and generally understand.  You'd have to spend downtime/resources/skills on literacy in those languages.  I agree above about some of the worldbuilding.  I'm using Greyhawk, which naturally has lots and lots of regional languages that the players can speak.  What I did was center one of my campaigns in the Fuyryondy region, then looked at what languages were spoken, picked one (Velondi), and that became the "regional language" for Furyondy, then Veluna to the west (Velondi and Oeridian), the Uleks (Keolandish), and  the Bandit Kingdoms and Urnst (Oeridian), etc.  I created a chart of allowed languages, and what languages were spoken in what nearby kingdoms/regions.  PC's were then able to select languages based on where they started as well as where they might either intend to go, or where they travelled.  There are other languages further away, but the characters don't know them and/or might never encounter them.  I did away with "Common" as it was just a "let's agree to ignore languages all together" kind of thing where language doesn't matter, until it does (usually in the PC's favor).  If you're visiting a neighboring kingdom/region, and speak Velondi, its fairly likely that someone speaking Oeridian might be able to get the gist, and vice versa (likely be an Int check to see how well its understood).  This makes hiring NPC guides, hirelings, etc. more important in my games, and makes people from a different culture (such as it might be) different in dress, mannerism, and speech.  If a caster wanted to use Tongues as a third level slot for speaking to someone, more power to them.  That's one less fireball.  I also tend, though, to severely limit or remove spells and things that skip entire elements of interacting with the world - read thoughts, zone of truth, ESP, etc.  Some of those might be rarely found in tomes, and not something someone would be showing off with.   I also run in Old School Essentials, so everything is a resource anyway since there are no cantrips.  That light spell is a leveled spell.  But, YMMV, and different tables want or don't want different levels of engagement in their worlds, or to bother with languages or not.  But when someone actually knows a relevant/adjacent language that helps out in-game, that's a huge deal in the party, and its an element of the game that the whole party is involved in (i.e. they all know languages, or at least one).</blockquote>

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